Every decade has its mistakes, of course, but one nice thing about the past 10 years' foibles, foul-ups and flubs is that so often they came with neat, two-word monikers, almost like keepsakes: "Wardrobe malfunction." "Mission Accomplished." "Balloon boy."

Here's a review of 10 what-were-they-thinking moments.

1. Bernie Madoff has been called many names. For one federal regulatory sleuth, he was ... "a wonderful storyteller." For years, the Securities and Exchange Commission received detailed complaints that Madoff's investment operation was certainly fishy and probably criminal ("Nothing more than a Ponzi Scheme," a tipster wrote in 2000, eight years before Madoff confessed). SEC examiners found, instead, "a very captivating speaker" who assured them he was not "greedy" and all was OK. An SEC branch's decision to shelve the probe turned out to be a mistake — one of, oh, several billion blamed on Madoff, who's now charming fellow inmates in prison.

2. White House flight of fancy, 2003: Advance folks had almost everything right: the golden sunset light, President George W. Bush's dramatic landing on the carrier deck, the speech. But that giant "Mission Accomplished" sign, with years of mission still ahead, who came up with that? Reporters launched the "bannergate" investigation.

3. White House flight of fancy, 2009: We always thought Air Force One takes a good picture in any setting — but an aide to President Barack Obama thought a few snaps with lower Manhattan as a backdrop would be dramatic. How's this for drama: panicked office workers, seeing the low-flying 747 shadowed by a fighter plane, streaming out of buildings, phrases like "stupid and alarming" coming from local officials, and pretty much everybody mad about the taxpayer-funded photo op's price tag: $328,835. The aide was, er, grounded.

4. Aerial ambitiousness also gave us the balloon boy. When a homemade foil-covered balloon supposedly slipped its tether with a 6-year-old inside, we all held our breath — except some heavy-breathing cable anchors. The balloon finally landed — empty — and the kid was found safe at home, hiding, his father said. But why? "You had said that we did this for a show," the tyke told Dad, a would-be reality TV star, live on CNN. Whoops. Hoax charges followed.